


Be still

by Talented_but_Lazy



Series: Hyacinths [1]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Descriptions of gore, Gen, cameo from Rize, tags will change, torture?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 19:44:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4534944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talented_but_Lazy/pseuds/Talented_but_Lazy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsukiyama reaches a different epiphany, and doesn't release Kaneki from the Ghoul Restaurant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be still

**Author's Note:**

> Temporary edit: I forgot to mention that I'm going to the USA on vacation till the 1st of September, so I can't promise when the new chapter will come out, but I'll do my best to update as soon as possible!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Purple hyacinth:** Forgive me _(for all I am about to do.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hyacinths in general may mean 'rashness'. Blue hyacinth means 'constancy', as in "Tsukiyama eats Kaneki constantly".

Shuu Tsukiyama was not a cruel man. He was mostly just bored, seeking the thrill of the ultimate taste, each time taking a step closer to it and craving more.

Shuu Tsukiyama was, however, a man of good manners, eccentric as he was.

Then Ken Kaneki stumbled into his life.

The most captivating scent his refined nose had ever had the pleasure of catching. The aroma played with him, invited him, and yet he couldn't place what it was that drew him in so strongly.

So when he found out that the boy was a rare half-ghoul hybrid, he knew that he had finally found the ultimate taste - a treat fully worthy of him.

He was going to have Kaneki, and nothing and nobody was going to stand in his way.

* * *

Kaneki woke up in complete darkness. It was so dark, actually, that he wasn't sure if his eyes were open or not. What was the time?

He sat up, or at least he thought he did. It was kind of hard to tell with how sleepy he still was.

Where in Tokyo could it get so dark? Definitely not his apartment, lights from the street always crossed his room, no matter how tight he'd pulled the curtains.

Except he wasn't in his apartment. His blood froze in his veins as he remembered the pervious night. That dreadful 'dinner' at the Ghoul Restaurant. How those two humans were slaughtered by the scrapper, who was then killed by a masked Tsukiyama...

Then the gourmet had leant down to Kaneki, so close he could smell his perfume under the thick coat of the scrapper's blood, and his hot breath had tickled his ear with a greedy sentence.

Then everything had gone black.

Kaneki briefly tried to remember what he had said, hoping it could give him a clue on where he was and what was happening, but it evaded him.

There was no point in continuing, so he carefully slid to the end of the bed and tentatively swung his legs over the edge. He found he was barefoot as he stepped on a soft carpet.

He stood up and inhaled deeply. The air was fresh, but laced with a familiar perfume that sent shivers down his spine.

Slightly shaking, uneasy on his legs, he followed the bed to the nearest wall, then used it as a guide as he blindly explored the room.

As far as he could tell, the walls were windowless, lined with bookshelves; opposite the bed was an enforced door, firmly locked; on the right of the door, pressed to the wall were a table and a chair - elaborate and smooth to the touch, which betrayed they were wooden and very expensive. He presumed the room was square or very close to one in shape.

Equipped with a mental map of the room, Kaneki slowly walked back to the bed and sat down to make sense of the situation.

He couldn't remember anything else but all that he could pointed to Tsukiyama being behind this.

Even with the distressing memories and thoughts, Kaneki barely noticed when he'd shifted from sitting to lying, or when he had fallen into a quiet, dreamless sleep.

* * *

The first thing Kaneki noticed when he next woke up was a familiar, sweet taste coating his mouth.

He moved his head to the side, out from under the pillow and his eyes were greeted with bright light. He groaned and pressed the pillow down on his face, but the movement made pain shoot through his left arm.

That kind of woke him up and he remembered his predicament. Kaneki sat up quickly, throwing off the pillow.

He brought his left hand up to see why it had hurt but... There was nothing there.

Where his left hand should have been poking out of his sleeve was just a neatly bandaged stump.

He couldn't stop a yell from leaving his lips and he covered them with his right hand as he stared at the stub, trying to process it.

His abductor had taken his hand. More proof that this was Tsukiyama's doing.

He swallowed heavily and finally moved his eyes from the horrible sight, fearing he'd throw up if he continued looking.

To distract himself, he scanned the room.

The dimensions were the same as those he had mapped out the previous time he had been awake, although he hadn't anticipated the height of the room. It seemed like it was about as tall as it was wide, so he supposed the room was cube-shaped. The lamps on the ceiling made it hard for him to look up for more than a few seconds.

Kaneki searched for any details he'd missed. As previously suspected, there was no apparent switch for the lights, so he was going to be in darkness or light whenever his abductor pleased.

He inhaled deeply though his nose.

The air seemed fresh, but the blood in his mouth made it hard to make out other scents besides the perfume, which, while weaker, was still quite prominent. Even when he closed his mouth, he couldn't detect anything else.

Finally he dared look at the stump he had for a left arm again. The bandage was crisp, emitting a light smell of some kind of medicine that reminded him of his stay at the hospital a month or two earlier. The stump didn't hurt so much - maybe he had been given some kind of painkiller? - but he felt a strange itch in the air right in front of it. He supposed this was what a 'phantom limb' meant.

Doing his best to ignore his missing hand, he got up and walked up to the book shelves. They were full of expensive editions of all sorts of books, all in perfect condition, all just waiting for him to pick them up. A special shelf above the headboard of the bed was dedicated solely to Takatsuki Sen.

Kaneki took a few steps back and stood in the centre of the room for a bit, taking in the whole situation.

His hand was missing.

He had expensive books.

That sweet taste in his mouth was blood.

The lingering perfume in the air.

There was no doubt about it: he was being held prisoner by Tsukiyama.

* * *

The silence was unnerving. There were absolutely no sounds besides those Kaneki himself made, and it felt so... unnatural.

He had never been a fan of noise - he prefered silence, but sometimes, when he sat still, all he could hear was his own heart beating in his ears. It made him feel alone in the world, depsite knowing he wasn't.

It was too much.

So even before his left hand had fully regrown he tried to find a weakness in the door, resorting to using his kagune, but it failed too.

The walls didn't falter either.

Next he'd thrashed all the books from the shelves, for a while forgetting any respect he had for them, why should these pieces of processed wood matter when he was being held captive like an animal for slaughter?

With the books out of the way, he tried every single inch of the walls behind them, till the lights above him were shut off and he was left to rage against the concrete and silence and metal in darkness. Despite his efforts, nothing gave in.

He crawled back to his bed and hid under the covers, wishing he could wake up from this nightmare already.

When he next woke up, all the books were back in their places, intact as if nothing had happened. Had he really tried to break out...?

His entire left hand was there again. Kaneki blinked at it, tentatively moving the fingers and touching it with the other hand. It felt normal, as if it had never been missing.

As he sat up a sharp pain informed him that something else was gone instead.

With shaking hands he removed the covers.

He had no legs from the knees down. Only freshly bandaged stumps.

Kaneki didn't really feel the tears as they fell from his eyes.

* * *

The next 'day', on the table awaited him a walkman atop a box, probably filled with cassettes. Above the door, embedded into the wall, was a clock, steadily counting the seconds and minutes and hours in a quiet  _tick-tock_ .

His little episode had given him some positive results, at least.

Kaneki stared at the table, not too far, but just out of reach, and it felt like it was mocking him, saying: 'Come and get me, you know he's waiting, always watching.'

He didn't want to use the player, but the little relief that the tick-tocking clock gave him was quickly giving way to driving him up the wall.

His thoughts briefly wandered to Gregor from _The Metamorphosis_. If only he could crawl on the wall to the table. He shook his head from the stupid thought. But it was fact that he was trapped in a room, like the insect protagonist.

The longer he had to listen to the clock, the louder its ticking became. It drowned his thoughts and made it near impossible to concentrate on anything else.

He needed the music player.

But there was still the problem of getting to the table at all. Drag himself on the floor? He didn't see any cameras but the thought of crawling and showing weakness when *he* was around wasn't too appealing.

Did he have a choice, though? Not really, Kaneki concluded bitterly.

So he rolled off the bed, trying to fall as gently as possible. The carpet was soft enough and he landed without much pain on his side. He turned onto his belly and started dragging himself towards the table, trying to kick whatever he had left from his legs.

Moving like that reminded him of when his mother had been trying to teach him how to swim. He must have been no older than six. It was a rare moment of her being free and deciding to spend the time with her son.

He never did learn how to swim.

Kaneki shook the memory out of his head, faced with the insurmountable obstacle of the chair and table. He groaned lowly as he sat up, brushing his wounds on the floor and the sore flesh sending new waves of pain up his legs. Even if he managed to pull himself onto the chair, how was he going to sit on it, how was he going to take the things from the table? How was he going to then go back to the bed, then onto the bed?

The answer came on its own.

The pain in his legs slowly eased away as a new one formed at the small of his back. The skin tore open and his kagune emerged from behind him. Kaneki wondered if he could use it instead of legs, like he had done during his rampage... and just like that, the tentacles wrapped down his legs, forming new ones for him below the knees. Supporting himself on the chair, he stood up, not too steady, but it was better than crawling. He quickly grabbed the walkman and box and stumbled back to the bed, the kagune-legs giving in and he fell face first onto the sheets.

Well, that worked.

The box was indeed full of cassettes with different kinds of music, and it made him feel like he was being mocked. It wasn't like Tsukiyama couldn't afford an MP3 player or anything that didn't scream of the 90's.

At least it was useful.

The next few days Kaneki tried to learn how to use his kagune as legs. But it just wasn't working - the kagune refused to come out, no matter how much he concentrated. It seemed that had been just a short streak of good luck he'd had.

So he had to settle for listening to the music as he waited for his legs to grow back so he could walk again.

As he listened to some album with soft, ambient music, he made himself a promise to escape at any cost.

He just had to survive.

* * *

Using the clock he could measure how much time Tsukiyama let him be conscious. 14 hours in light and 2 hours in darkness with unknown periods of unconsciousness in between. Whenever it was light again, the clock always showed the last time he had seen before dark, precise to the second.

He needed a way to measure time beyond the clock, feeling he'd been losing track of the days.

Tsukiyama didn't touch the books when Kaneki was just reading them, so he found them the same way they were when he left them. So he took the thickest volume he could find (a 2000-something word dictionary, which was convenient, as he had the excuse he would be searching for words as he read) and started folding the pages. A folded corner towards the number of each passing day.

* * *

Privacy was a thing of the past for Kaneki. He knew Tsukiyama (or maybe some kind of servant? But the gourmet was so possessive Kaneki wouldn't be surprised if he did it all by himself) released some kind of sleep-inducing gas to keep up his sleeping cycle, and when he woke up again, he always felt cleaner, and his clothes were usually changed; any bandages were renewed as well.

He was always fed while he was asleep, too. Kaneki prefered not to dwell on that.

Twice a day the big metal door opened and he could go down a short cold corridor with a single door on the back of its left wall. It led to a small, but nice-looking bathroom. At least he was allowed to do that on his own.

That usually happened as soon as the lights turned on, and a bit before they turned off.

As his body got used to losing and regrowing limbs, his regeneration times got shorter.

Sometimes it seemed he was asleep for longer than usual (was it eight hours? Ten?). He suspected during that time Tsukiyama took other parts of him too, but waited till they had grown back before allowing him consciousness again. That was a suspicion he didn't really want proven.

* * *

About 28 sleep cycles since he had started measuring them, he woke up feeling heavy. He had regrown everything lost the previous day and thought he'd wake up missing something again, but as far as he could feel, he was whole.

Kaneki quickly found out that his body was made of lead and it took him an eternity just to sit up. Right then the door creaked open and for the first time, he saw that the wall at the back was missing: there was a flight of stairs there instead.

Through the door entered the all too familiar expensive perfume, except this time it wasn't just an aromatic ghost.

Shuu Tsukiyama gracefully walked into the room, closing the door behind himself with a click.

'Kaneki.'

Despite the heaviness he felt, Kaneki's glare didn't leave his captor as he approached.

'You must be wondering why I am here, after such a long time of leaving you all alone, _non_?'

Kaneki just kept staring at him.

'Ah, perhaps I should have come to you earlier, to keep those vocal cords working.' Kaneki stayed motionless. He probably could still speak, but he wasn't sure how his voice would sound. He didn't want to sound weak in any way.

'Very well, I will continue. As you have realised by now, I decided that the best way of eating you is to savour the taste for as long as possible, keeping you here, safe from the other ghouls while still providing you with comfort.'

'Cut the crap.' Kaneki spat out. So much for keeping quiet. At least his voice was steady, if hoarse.

'Tsk, tsk, is that really going to be the first thing you say in so long?' Tsukiyama clicked with his tongue. 'I will cut to the chase, however, as you so eloquently asked.' His jaw tensed as he spoke. 'For the first few days I was quite content eating from you in parts. I tried to be civil and made sure for you to be unconscious when I took your tender flesh. I also fed you so you would regrow it and not suffer for too long.' At this Kaneki let out a snort.

'However,' Tsukiyama continued, ignoring the reaction, 'after a while I noticed that you didn't taste as good as that blood I tasted from you. Why was that?' He exclaimed, punctuating with a wave of his hand.

'That question wouldn't leave me alone for a week. But, you know what I realised?' Tsukiyama asked as he took a step closer. 'That blood, my first sample of you, was drawn from you when you were awake and pure.' Another step. 'It seems the sedative I use for you just tastes too bad.' He was so close that Kaneki could punch him if he weren't made of lead. 'So, I'm going to try a new one, which should be undetectable, but unfortunately it will not keep you asleep as I eat.'

A hand rested on Kaneki's shoulder as Tsukiyama leant in closer, pushing him down on the bed. Kaneki fell limply, unable to fight back.

'Accept my apology.' With those words Tsukiyama climbed on top of him, closed the distance between their mouths, as if starting a kiss but quickly moving to bite Kaneki's lip, drawing blood and moaning.

'Just as good as I remember...' Tsukiyama whimpered and bit off Kaneki's lower lip, then the upper one, then moved to the rest of his face, biting off whole chunks of meat, not even stopping to chew.

Kaneki struggled desperately to push him off but his arms were too heavy and Tsukiyama was too strong and the pain was too unbearable so all Kaneki could do was scream his throat raw as Tsukiyama devoured his flesh.

* * *

Kaneki had no idea how much time had passed since Tsukiyama's visit but when he woke up in darkness he felt no pain. He tentatively touched his face and found with relief that his features were the same in touch as he remembered.

Maybe... Maybe that had been a dream. A nightmare. All that time spent alone had taken a toll on his mind.

Once the lights were on, Kaneki looked around the room for any sign that the truth was anything else and found nothing.

The only difference was a light aroma that filled the room. It wasn't like Tsukiyama's perfume, it was more natural, kind of floral.

He sighed and sat down at the table to continue his book and check off the date.

Among the piles of books on the table was something he hadn't noticed at first. Upon further inspection he saw it was a single purple flower in a delicate crystal vase.

Kaneki stared at it, then looked up at the shelves around him. He remembered seeing a book on flowers and their symbolism somewhere in the shelf in front of him.

* * *

_Forgive me._

That was what the flower, the purple hyacinth, meant.

 _I'll never forgive you,_ Kaneki thought when he woke up in an unfamiliar room, strapped to a chair. His mind was almost clear, his body felt normal.

Still, he couldn't move.

He was so tightly tied he couldn't move more than a few millimetres, and the tightest wrapping was around his lower back, where he felt a numb, throbbing pain.

The little he could move his head he managed to get a glance around the room. It was small, simple, black tiles covering all surfaces. Easy to clean.

And the smell of Tsukiyama (or was it the flower?) was overwhelming.

Kaneki felt movement behind his back and soon a shadow was hovering above him.

'It seems that even the faintest drug doesn't work. Anything that taints the purity of your blood disrupts the harmony of your taste and so you have to be clean as I eat you.'

As much as the enthusiasm in Tsukiyama's voice sickened him, Kaneki remained unresponsive; it was becoming the default state for him.

'I'm still stronger than you, but I'm not stupid, and I cannot risk you hurting me.' Tsukiyama explained, lovingly caressing the restraint on one of Kaneki's arms as he walked around him.

'You know,' Tsukiyama continued, stopping right in front of Kaneki and crouching, 'I've kept on the down low, away from your little friends, but every now and then I succumb to temptation and check on them from afar. They're going about their lives as if nothing happened. As far as they know, you died that night all those months ago in the Restaurant.'

Kaneki tried to tune him out, to ignore what he said, but his words struck him like daggers. Those had to be lies, right? They wouldn't forget about him just like that, right?

Right.

He gritted his teeth as Tsukiyama carefully removed one of the straps on Kaneki's arm, exposing his skin to the cool air of the room.

 _'Bon appetit.'_ Tsukiyama whispered to himself as he bit into Kaneki's flesh.

* * *

After Tsukiyama finished... eating, Kaneki had fallen unconscious. He wasn't sure if he'd fainted from bloodloss or if he had somehow been sedated.

When he woke up next, he was in his room again. Kaneki sat up, running his good hand down his face. The other arm felt numb and too light. Kaneki ignored it, instead shifting his attention to the purple flower on the table.

But of course.

He stood up and walked towards it, slightly swaying on his feet, grabbed the vase and threw it against the nearby wall, right above the table. It shattered into a million glistening pieces.

He crouched to look at the pieces, and in the middle of the pool of water and glass lay the hyacinth, undisturbed, staring up at him with its mocking purple bells. Rage swelled in Kaneki's chest and he took the flower, shook off the water and glass and smashed it into the carpet in front of him, thoroughly squishing it till it barely resembled its former self.

The aroma of the flower seeped through his pores and the infuriating smell followed him for the rest of the next few days.

* * *

His next trip to that small black room made things worse, even if he doubted it was possible.

But it could always get worse.

It had only been light for 6 hours when the lamps went off. Kaneki blindly looked up from his book, wondering if the electricity had gone off and if there was a chance the door would turn out to be electricity powered and be unlocked.

Right on cue, a click came from the door. Muffled steps came in and headed for the bed. Kaneki's heart jumped - this was his chance! He slipped off the chair, as quiet as possible, and made strides towards where he knew the door was. He almost felt like crying when he passed the treshold - he was so close to escaping!-

-but then he tripped on something and fell face first onto cold tiles.

'You didn't think I'd let you escape so easily, did you?' Came Tsukiyama's voice right above him and Kaneki felt something wrap around both his legs, preventing him from getting up. Tsukiyama roughly caught his arms and yanked them behind his back. The thing around his legs slipped upwards and wrapped around his arms as well. It was firm and smooth. He realised it was the other ghoul's kagune.

'My my, what have we here?' A familiar voice dripping with amusement whispered into Kaneki's left ear. The next sentence rang into Kaneki's right ear: 'Why don't you be still, Kaneki? Else he might hurt you more than he needs to.'

Kaneki broke his right arm free, swatting at where the voice was coming from, trying to grab her. Maybe he could switch places with her and Tsukiyama would take Rize instead.

But she just pushed his hand back away and it was pulled towards his body, wrapped tightly with no hope of breaking out again.

'No! Take her!' Kaneki growled out, struggling with renewed strength. 'It's all her fault, take her, please! Take her...' He broke down into sobs.

Dim light filled the room and Kaneki saw a blurry shadow, not too far from him.

Rize laughed and told him to stay still again.

'Be still now,' Tsukiyama said through the laughter as Kaneki felt a pair of hands picking up the back of his shirt. Before Kaneki could wonder why he had echoed Rize, the fingers dug into the small of his back. They pried the flesh open, piercing right into Kaneki's kakuhou. The sharp smell of blood struck Kaneki's nose as he thrashed with his body and screamed at the top of his lungs.

He desperately tried to make his kagune come out, but it was already too damaged to form. The pain choked his screams into silence and he could merely gasp for air as his only weapon was being ripped out of his body.

Once the kakuhou was damaged enough, he was lifted up and got a brief glimpse of a chuckling Rize before a purple ribbon wrapped around his eyes. Her laughter followed him as Tsukiyama carried him off to what Kaneki assumed was that small black room.

When he was secured into the chair, he tasted blood. The laughter stopped.

His face felt stiff and he couldn't get enough breath.

Oh.

Rize was long gone.

Tsukiyama was silently standing in front of him.

Kaneki had been the one laughing.

* * *

With the new 'regime', Tsukiyama stopped the regular enforced sleeping and waking cycle, instead only keeping him sedated right after eating from him, so the pain wouldn't be too much. Probably. It was also the only time he got fed, which was the more likely reason.

Then, besides the lamps turning on and off, and the bathroom opening now three times a day (twice in the light, once during the 'night'; the last one was in pitch darkness, but Kaneki knew the place by heart by then) he was mostly left on his own to recuperate till everything grew back so the cycle could repeat.

That was the only 'improvement'.

* * *

'Your hair's becoming white,' Tsukiyama remarked one time, after Kaneki had lost track of the days. He felt like he had been in this prison for an entire lifetime.

Kaneki didn't say anything. The restraints didn't let him even flinch as Tsukiyama ran his fingers through his hair to examine it better.

'You're going to need a haircut soon.' He hummed and moved in front of Kaneki.

Why did he have to speak so casually? Why couldn't he stay smug and not jar him more with these sickeningly friendly comments?

'Now, what part of you should I eat first?'

* * *

While the clock kept ticking into the darkness, when the lamps turned on again, it always showed the last time he had seen before it became pitch black, down to the second. Maybe the dark periods were exactly 12 hours and that's why it looked the same.

Except not.

One 'night' he couldn't sleep (nor move, after all, you can't really move when half your back is missing and your whole body is on fire) and the cassette player had run out of batteries, so he spent the entire time counting the ticks and tocks.

He counted 18000 ticks and 18000 tocks, which means 36000 seconds, or 600 minutes, or 10 hours.

The next dark period he did the same, this time counting 50400 seconds, or 14 hours.

So what, each time he was in the dark for a random amount of exact hours? Honestly, why not?

The only comfort the darkness brought was that Rize didn't seem to like it much.

Oh, Rize. When it was 'daylight', she liked to appear and mock him, or tell him his predicament was all his fault. Kaneki was starting to believe her. After all, he had been warned about Tsukiyama, but still went to the Restaurant with him.

Had Itori known where she was sending him?

He couldn't know that, even if he could somehow ask her himself. She had no reason to tell him the truth, did she?

Of course she didn't, Rize assured Kaneki.

Nobody had a reason to tell him the truth.

Maybe only Rize told him the truth? She was dead, of course. He was seeing a hallucination, some part of himself that hated him. He couldn't trust anyone but himself. Probably.

So he didn't really doubt her when she told him things about himself.

'"You're all mine now", isn't that what he said that night?' Rize mused aloud.

'Why are you telling me this now?' Kaneki asked. He rarely replied to her, but this time she'd piqued his interest.

'Well, isn't he right?' She asked in turn.

'I'm not his,' Kaneki snorted in annoyance.

'Oh? But aren't you starting to give in?'

'I'm not. Why do you think that?'

Rize went quiet.

That wasn't like her. Kaneki looked up from the current book he was reading, hoping that she had disappeared just like that.

But she was still there, just pointing somewhere and smirking like usual.

Kaneki's eyes followed the curve of her finger to the table, where the newest hyacinth was in a vase, undisturbed.

'What about it?' He finally asked, looking back down at his book.

'You used to destroy these flowers. Who knows how many of these innocent, fragrant blossoms were destroyed by you. But now you leave them be till they wilt. Isn't this a sign you are giving up, you're coming to terms with this?'

Kaneki turned the page silently.

* * *

The new... feeding regime Tsukiyama had started made it almost impossible for Kaneki to bring out his kagune. The kakuhou took a lot longer to regrow than any other part. The rest of his body started taking longer to regenerate as well, so they were most probably connected.

Occasionally waking up with missing body parts suddenly seemed a lot more appealing than what had become his new life.

He was too weak to struggle. There seemed to be no point in it anymore either.

He was so tired.

* * *

After he had secured Kaneki into the chair one time, Tsukiyama had spent a few minutes examining his hair again and announced that almost all of it was white.

It wasn't long before he had knelt in front of Kaneki to start the meal.

'Tsukiyama?' Kaneki rasped, startling him. The pain was blurring his vision still, but he somehow had the strength to speak. He wanted to hear something for himself.

The gourmet looked up from his meal, _Kaneki's thigh_ , blood, _**Kaneki's blood**_ dripping off his surprised face. He wiped it sloppily with his even bloodier hand before replying, 'Yes?'

'How long do you intend to keep me here?' He asked quietly, trying to sound as soft and scared as he didn't feel at the moment. He found that Tsukiyama was less on his toes whenever Kaneki seemed scared.

'Why are you asking this, all of a sudden?' The ghoul answered with his own question, hands going back to the gaping wound on Kaneki's thigh to keep it open. It made an unpleasant sound. Kaneki focused on his words.

'You always want me to talk, and now I'm talking,' he answered after a short pause and Tsukiyama nodded. 'Can't I be curious about my own future?' _Or rather the lack of it_ , a certain female voice in his head added.

'Of course, of course,' Tsukiyama said with a sigh, eyes dropping again to the exposed muscle before him.

He was leaning down when Kaneki spoke up again, 'Please answer my question.'

'Alright,' The gourmet tore his eyes from the temptation in front of him to look at Kaneki in the eyes.

'Back when I was still taking from you while you were sedated, I used the opportunity to try every part of you. Almost. Of course, I couldn't try your most vital organs, namely the heart and brain.' His voice trailed off before he cotninued. 'But like I said, anything in your blood intervenes with your taste. So I intend on repeating that process now, till all that's left for me to try are those two organs.'

Kaneki's face remained stone as he listened. He couldn't say he was surprised, but hearing this wasn't pleasant either.

'And then?' He asked quietly.

Tsukiyama chuckled and shook his head. 'You know the answer to that, Kaneki.'

He nodded with the limited movement that his restraints allowed him, then settled back into silence. Tsukiyama leant back down to continue his meal.

* * *

Unknown to him, that was Kaneki's last trip to the black-tiled room.

After that, for three whole days there was no sight of Tsukiyama. The lights were left on and the clock worked normally. Thankfully the bathroom and water systems seemed to not need manual operating and were still working.

For the first time in... months, Kaneki was aware of his surroundings the whole time. No darkness, no sedation, nothing to stop his clear thoughts.

He thought something had happened to the bastard and he was left alone in his cell to die and rot. Still, there was the chance that he was just away for no apparent reason. If that was the case, who knew what he had come up with this time, so Kaneki kept on the lookout.

Soon after he woke up on the 4th day, the door to his room was burst open. A strange figure stumbled inside, swinging the door so hard it left a dent in the wall before bouncing back and closing with a click.

Tsukiyama looked nothing like his usual self, clothes disheveled, his usually flawlessly combed hair messy and face a sickly pale. Kaneki noticed he was bleeding profusely from where his right arm was supposed to be.

There was no exhausting monologue about Kaneki's deliciousness, or helplessness, just some pained noises before Tsukiyama finally seemed to remember why he was there.


End file.
